Have a maritime adventure

What more seductive call to adventure than the boom of the sea? Embark on your own enriching odyssey uncovering the diverse maritime influences that century upon century have shaped Kent.

Pick your highlights from thousands of years of seafaring tradition on the Maritime Heritage Trail from Gravesend to Dungeness. Sail, walk, visit museums featuring barges and wrecks. Then clamber with the kids aboard historic ships, share cockles and whelks for two on the shore.

Tour the coast following early 19th-century Martello gun towers built to resist French invasion – the clifftop views from Folkestone across the English Channel are superb.

Must-see, too: Medway, the historic capital of maritime Kent. Delve around the world’s most complete dockyard of the Age of Sail at Chatham, where HMS Victory was launched. Dockyard offices here have been reinvented as The Ship & Trades pub – a great refreshment stop before ‘taking the air’ with a trip on the paddle steamer Kingswear Castle.

Use our search facility to discover more about Kent’s exciting maritime heritage and attraction